There wouldn't have been a chance for Chet to ride out with the duplicate
cars and tip off the Feds to this amazing game. He considered a sneak along the
tunnel wall, but thought it better to wait until the Diesel backed in again.
There was some delay up by the tunnel mouth, a thing that gave Chet various
hopes, until he saw the reason.
The shifter wasn't coming back. It wasn't necessary. It had stopped within
the confines of the tunnel, simply letting the freight cars coast ahead, to be
braked by men on board them. Men who would simply scatter in the outside
darkness, because this tunnel had a mouth no longer.
Coincident with the coasting of the cars, the great curtain had come down
again, once more turning the exit into a chunk of hillside that would stand
average observation by day and close inspection at night. Beyond that screen,
unwitting Feds would find the waiting cars and tally them as the originals that
Marquette had loaded and dispatched!
What wholesale gyppery this was!
In one swoop, Dorgan had taken over several carloads of expensive, highly
processed Pyrolac, a shipment valued at thirty thousand dollars, or more. In its
place, he'd sent out a load of gumbo worth less than the cans that contained it,
though the stuff would necessarily contain some of the cheaper fluids forming
the base of Pyrolac, in order that the imposture would carry through.
Fake Pyrolac cans, their tops punctured and waxed to make it look like a
needle job! Again, Thorneau and other important customers would register a
proper complaint that Biggs would blame on Chet. As for Marquette, he wouldn't
gain a glimmer of the racket whereby highjackers were acquiring Pyrolac at less
than ten cents on the dollar!
ONE thing gave Chet grim satisfaction. Dorgan's men were unbolting the cars
that they had highjacked, to remove the stolen lacquer. They were pouring some
genuine Pyrolac into cans of ready-mixed paint, because of its quick-drying
properties. Parading along the line, Dorgan was displaying a new collection of
photographs, calling off names of railroads, lists of boxcar numbers, and giving
particular attention to color, as shown in the pictures.
Evidently, this crew had photographed the next batch of cars that were to
enter the Pyrolac factory, which was easy enough, considering that those cars
were already waiting in the freight yard. They'd have forty-eight hours to fake
this string of stolen cars to match the next batch due at Crooked Junction and
load them with a shipment of the gummy mess that passed as doctored Pyrolac.
Those hours would mark Chet's opportunity, which was why he began a
rearward sneak through the tunnel. Figuring the tunnel had another end, he
wanted to get through it and be on his way toward what would prove a complete
vindication.
Chet found the other end of the tunnel. The rusted tracks continued out
through and stopped abruptly on the edge of a ravine that no longer had a bridge
across it. Following the rocky brink, Chet found a dirt road that led him to a
paved highway.
A mile along the highway, Chet flagged a lumbering truck and gained a lift.
The driver was friendly and mentioned his destination when Chet asked it. The
truck was going to Packensaw, a Jersey town some twenty miles from the Pyrolac
factory. But that wasn't why Chet decided to go there too. He considered
